Oscar Lewis in Cuba: La Partida Final

American anthropologist Oscar Lewis secured permission from Fidel Castro to undertake three years of field research on cultural and economic change in Cuba in the decade after the victory of Castro’s M-26 Movement. This book delves into Lewis’ research goals, methods, the training and composition of his field team, and the difficulties of executing the plan in the political climate in Cuba at the time. The government’s reasons for early termination of the research agreement are enumerated and their many discrepancies and inconsistencies evaluated. The experience of Project Cuba offers lessons on the difficulties of doing social science research in any highly surveilled, politically controlled environment however sympathetic the principal investigator.

Susan M. Rigdon is a Research Associate in the Department of Anthropology at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of The Culture Facade: Art, Science and Politics in the Work (University of Illinois Press, 1988) and for 20 years has co-authored the award winning textbook American Government (Cengage Learning, 1980).